The ELN today boasts about 3,500 members

              By Jeremy McDermott in Colombia

              Inspired by the Cuban revolution, a group of Colombians went to Havana to receive training
              in insurgent warfare, returning to Colombia in 1964.

              Under the leadership of Fabio Vasquez  Castano, they founded the National Liberation
              Army (ELN).

              The movement attracted many Catholic priests who adhered to Liberation Theology,
              starting in 1966 with a handsome young crusading priest from a prominent family,
              Father Camilo Torres.

              He was killed in his first action with the guerrilla group, but several other priests
              followed in his footsteps. Among them was Spaniard Manuel Perez, who led the movement
              from the 1970s until his death in 1998.

              He was succeeded by the present leader, Nicolas Rodriguez, alias "Gabino", a tenacious
              guerrilla fighter and lady's man who joined the movement as a teenager.

              Kidnappers

              Hard hit by the army in 1973, the ELN recovered when it discovered two lucrative
              sources of income: kidnapping and extorting money from the oil industry.

              It reached the height of its power in the late1990s with some 5,000 fighters.

              Now hammered by right-wing paramilitary and the Colombian armed forces, its moral is
              suffering and its numbers have dropped to around 3,500.

              Unlike the FARC, (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), who adopted a strict
              hierarchy and concentrated on building up their military power, the ELN members split
              their efforts between military and social work.

              The ELN did not move into the drugs trade in the same way as their more powerful cousins,
              in part due to the moral objections of the former priest Perez.

              This is another explanation for their failure to enjoy the same explosive military growth as
              the FARC.

              Mass abductions

              The ELN rebels are the biggest kidnappers in Colombia and took over 800 hostages for
              ransom during 2001.

              They also hit the headlines with a series of mass kidnapping operations starting in April
              1999, during which they hijacked a domestic airliner, forced it to land on a deserted jungle
              airstrip and kidnapped the passengers and crew.

              This was swiftly followed by the abduction of an entire church congregation during a service
              in the city of Cali. Guerrillas burst into the church and herded 150 worshippers and the priest
              into waiting trucks.

              Unable to match the military might of the FARC and take on the security forces directly, the
              ELN has focused on hitting infrastructure targets such as the oil industry and the
              country's electricity grid.

              The ELN has shown a will to make peace since June 1998, when rebel leaders met with
              Colombian civilian representatives in Germany.

              There they laid out proposals for a peace process based on the creation of a National
              Convention designed to forge a new state incorporating all elements of Colombian
              society.

              But the government of President Andres Pastrana preferred to concentrate on the
              larger FARC and is only now trying to engage in serious peace talks with the group.